EQUITIES
The bulls continued to dominate the Nigerian equities market, resulting in 25 consecutive trading session gains. Today’s sentiments were buoyed by bargain hunting in BUACEMENT (+7.3%), TRANSCOHOT (+10.0%) and OANDO (+9.5%), causing the All-Share Index to increase by 0.7% to 145,813.86 points. Accordingly, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns settled higher at +4.3% and +41.7%, respectively.
The total volume of trades advanced by 162.5% to 2.70 billion units, valued at NGN32.63 billion, and exchanged in 35,137 deals. LINKASSURE was the most traded stock by volume at 562.32 million units, while ZENITHBANK was the most traded stock by value at NGN4.55 billion.
Sectoral performance was mixed as the Insurance (+9.9%), Industrial Goods (+2.9%), and Oil & Gas (+1.0%) indices closed higher, while the Consumer Goods (-0.4%) and Banking (-0.4%) indices declined.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was positive (2.0x), as 51 tickers gained relative to 25 losers. SCOA (+10.0%) and NEM (+10.0%) led the gainers, while NGXGROUP (-10.0%) and UACN (-10.0%) recorded the most significant losses of the day.
CURRENCY
The official FX rate appreciated by 0.1% to NGN1,532.00/USD.
MONEY MARKET & FIXED INCOME
The overnight lending rate contracted by 50bps to 27.0%, in the absence of significant debits from the system.
The NTB secondary market traded on a calm note, as the average yield closed flat at 17.8%. Across the curve, the average yield contracted at the short (-1bp) and mid (-1bp) segments, driven by the demand for the 80DTM (-1bp) and 171DTM (-1bp), bills, respectively while it expanded at the long (+2bps) end following selloffs of the 353DTM (+58bps) bill. Elsewhere, the average yield declined by 4bps to 24.7% in the OMO segment.
Proceedings in the FGN bond secondary market were bullish as the average yield contracted by 2bps 16.3%. Across the benchmark curve, the average yield contracted at the mid (-6bps) segment, driven by the demand for the APR-2037 (-29bps) bond, while it closed flat at the short and long end.
